I'll be the first one to admit that I have been a part of a lot of community mapping projects before, and I can probably count on one hand the number of them that succeeded. Depending on the game or the engine, we either hit game limitations for entities or brushes or lights, or the guidelines for size or "scope" were too broad so once compiled it had the worst budget/FPS ever, or the theme was too open ended and so nothing really meshed that well.

Thankfully Portal really kind of solves that problem for us, since it's easy to say "okay your map must begin in an elevator shaft and end with a fizzler and an elevator shaft". Sure there are some more limitations but in the end, there is a clear start and finish.

So to that end, in lieu of another mapping contest, I am going to attempt to start a ThinkingWithPortals Community Pack. I don't have anything set in stone other than your map must start and end with an elevator, and can be as long or as short as you'd like.

Any ideas welcome.

FYI, I am posting this in the News so that we get a bit more coverage.

And before anyone asks, sure BTS is acceptable. We won't need a "starting chamber" and I wouldn't worry about a "final boss" since I'll probably assign both of those to someone trusted.

Anyway as I said, I am totally open to ideas for this, so please post away.

General Guidelines (So Far)

• Must begin with an Elevator- Must end with a fizzler and an Elevator- Needs to be Portal/Aperture-themed- 2-3 months development time frame (at maximum)- VMF must be available to myself or another Global Mod on request

my tuppence worth: post14993.html#14993 ??

haha Do you want to throw all of you maps into this?

Oh yeah I guess I should say this before anyone asks. Yes, you would need to provide your full VMF when requested by me or another super-admin (Hober, f0rkz, Duffers) so that myself or other experience mappers may perform any sort of multi-map and/or rendering optimization.

msleeper wrote:
haha Do you want to throw all of you maps into this?

Oh yeah I guess I should say this before anyone asks. Yes, you would need to provide your full VMF so that myself or other experience mappers may perform any sort of multi-map and/or rendering optimization.

That won't sit well with a lot of people...perhaps tell mappers which map theirs should load into at the end and have them edit it?

Okay, I updated it. You wouldn't have to post your VMF here on the boards, but if I or whoever else would help me do the final compile needs your VMF, I'll ask for it. Map content will be kept private if requested so it's not going to be publicly posted.

no no, I mean why try to organise a big comunity mapping project just as I try to get involvement in TS13?
The two projects, whilst not entirely the same are sort of similar all I'm suggesting is you put effort into getting quality stuff into TS13 rather than getting quality stuff into a separate project.

Upon more detailed thought though I think I'd be doing most of the mapping part of TS13 so actually it wont drown me out too much :p (provided I go for the original 'storyline A', story line B will require a larger percent to be done by others.)

That's basically why, you're wanting to do something story-driven where as this is just a bunch of maps by community members. And as you said, that is a personal project and you're doing most of the work on it.

This sounds like an excellent idea and I'd love to participate. I'm currently working on a map pack project of my own, but should have that wrapped up shortly.

I've got some puzzle ideas I've had lying around for a bit, this could be a good chance to put them to use.

Edit:

Will/should mappers need to submit work to qualify participation?

I'd love to try, and then critique all your maps with my amazing mapping abilities.

Aside that though, I'm busy on a Mod, as Sleeper knows....

So I'll see what I can do with Portal in that Time.

Oh, a good reason to finally learn to use Hammer!

I'm kinda out of ideas but if I'll think of something worth a part I'll join with pleasure.

MrTwoVideoCards wrote:
I'd love to try, and then critique all your maps with my amazing mapping abilities.

Aside that though, I'm busy on a Mod, as Sleeper knows....

So I'll see what I can do with Portal in that Time.

You can do a few easy maps, for the beginning of it.

Hen7 wrote:
I'm kinda out of ideas but if I'll think of something worth a part I'll join with pleasure.

Actually it was the Portal: Flash pack that really kicked my ass into finally doing this. So thanks.

So, no starting rooms?

Portalboat wrote:
So, no starting rooms?

msleeper wrote:

And before anyone asks [. . .] we won't need a "starting chamber" and I wouldn't worry about a "final boss" since I'll probably assign both of those to someone trusted.

Is there a comprehension problem here?

im going to put in a small fling chamber ive been working on today, so expect to hear about it

I'll attempt to make a BTS style part.

Sleepwalker wrote:
I'll attempt to make a BTS style part.

Try to keep the start and finished contained in a single map until we get others who may do BTS stuff, to keep things consistent.

I'll try to make something, thought it'll probably never get done.

'Cause I'm a procrastinator.

Ok... so... if we want to contribute to this project we should prep a smallish segment including a start elevator and end elevator? Should we attempt to coordinate segments so they fit in to each other? Will some people be doing easy segments and some hard segments? Should we have people speak up about what they're working on and where they think it will go?